Savannah attorney Lawrence Edward Madison on Monday was convicted of child molestation and sexual battery against a victim over a six-year period.
Chatham County Superior Court Judge James F. Bass Jr. sent Madison, 53, to jail immediately to await a June 28 sentencing hearing after the jury returned to court with convictions after about 75 minutes of deliberations.
Their verdict: guilty on child molestation in 2006, two counts of sexual battery and a single aggravated sexual battery, all in 2009 in what the victim, now 21, testified was conduct that began when she was 11 years old and continued until she was 18.
Bass directed verdicts of acquittal on a child-molestation charge in 2003 and a charge for public indecency in 2009.
The conduct charged in the 2009 indictment began March 1, 2003, and continued until Oct. 19, 2009. The later charges involved actions that occurred in Madison’s law offices at 321 Commercial Drive.
Madison, who acted as co-counsel, sat silently as defense attorney Michael Schiavone closed his defense with only a single, brief witness.
Assistant District Attorney Emily Thomas told jurors in her closing argument Monday Madison’s conduct was “all part of a pattern” by a man she said he considered the victim “his girlfriend ...h is lover.”
“He was apparently obsessed with her,” Thomas told the jury.
The victim made outcries from 2003 and in 2006 “told somebody about it.”
“He is able to stop for periods of time” she told the jury, each time returning to the same basic conduct.
Schiavone argued police investigators did not believe the 2003 cases occurred and, similarly, a grand jury found insufficient evidence to indict Madison in 2007 on a child molestation charge stemming from an October 2006 incident.
“There was no crime. It did not happen,” he argued.
Concerning the 2009 charges of sexual battery and aggravated sexual battery, Schiavone conceded the two did “some petting,” but argued that because the accuser was 18 and could and did give consent, no crime had occurred.
“What the state proved was that (Madison) was not guilty,” Schiavone said.